A month of life, started with death, continuing with birth

We celebrated our 21st wedding anniversary this month. Both having been widowed, we have more than 50 years of wedded life between us, which is something to celebate. We cherish each other and subscribe to the "till death us do part" bit. 

Death came to his brother at the end of June, and his funeral is now, three weeks later. Funerals are family events. The first funeral I went to was my grandmother's in 1973. As her coffin was lowered into the grave, I choked. Remembering how hard I found that, when I came to another funeral in the 1980s, a lad of about 18 years old, killed in a glider collision during a competition, I stood well back from the main funeral party. I watched his family go to the grave, his parents, and his sister, the only sibling, who would never have nephews and nieces. 

I've been to other funerals since: my late husband, my cousin, parents, aunts and uncles. Today, was the funeral of someone of another of my now older generation. At the meal after, they had a photo album of his life, as a toddler with his mother, as a young man with both his parents, as a university student with his brother, his wedding day, his own little boy, now a grown man who wrote his eulogy.

Yet two days ago a child was born into our family. That day was I showed his toddler brother photos of when their father was a toddler, and his baby sister was born.  Life goes on. 

Life, death and start again

Last year I had four funerals to go to - two nonagenarian aunties, an uncle, and the much younger husband of a long standing friend and colleague, so it was all rather sad. I'm delighted to report that this year starts with the announcement of an expected birth. One of my much loved step children rang me yesterday to announce the expected arrival of a new grandchild in July.

Hurrah! The more the merrier. I love big families - I always wanted one. The bigger the happier becuase there's always someone you'll get on with and find support from sometime, whether as a child or as an adult.

Uncle died

Less than a week after Aunty Grace's funeral, Uncle Les also died. When I saw him at A Grace's funeral, he invited us back to their house because we don't often have a family get-together. He never got back to his house from the funeral, and we all met up again for his funeral.

My aunt first married in 1942. The best man was Les Jones. Her husband was killed at Arnhem and in 1995, my aunt, having been a war widow for years, married Les Jones. My cousin emailed:

"They do say that it is the best man's duty to look after the bride, should anything befall the bridegroom. It took him a while, but he did eventually perform that duty."

When they married they'd hoped, they'd have ten years of companionship before one died, but they managed fifteen.

Les was bright, but confined to a wheelchair. He had problems which made eating and talking at the same time impossible. During the refreshments after my aunt's funeral Les choked on some food. My god daughter, a nurse, kept him alive until the first paramedic arrived, within 7½ minutes of my cousin's 999 call. Les was taken to hospital where, suffering from inhalation pneumonia and a collapsed lung, he arrested again, was resuscitated, but died peacefully with friends and relatives around him. My cousin emailed:

"Had he recovered sufficiently to be discharged from hospital he would have had very poor quality of life, and would almost certainly have had to go into residential care, which he had long resisted with all his not inconsiderable power. He was 93, so once again I believe it was his time to go and be reunited with my mother."

Peg's funeral

My nearly 90-year-old Aunty Peggy died on 16 September, probably while she was watching the Pope's arrival here - they found her with the television on.

Today was her funeral, well attended. Her surviving four children, along with her eight grandchildren arrived from three continents to celebrate her life at the parish church that she and Uncle Jack had attended since around 1968 when they moved to that small town. My #5 cousin said that Peg had been the heart of the family, that many had seen her as a mother, and indeed she was. When I was very small, I had to stay with her although she already had four children, for three weeks because my father was seriously ill in hospital. Aunty Peggy treated me like one of her own, even though I was her husband's niece, not hers. Years later she reminded me how's she'd washed my hair, and been startled by my screaming - I was always scared that the soap would go in my eyes and sting. She brought up five children, carried on mothering them till she was in her eighties.

My octogenarian mother came to the funeral, saw her sister-in-law buried with Jack. Of that generation, my mother and her sister remain, both frail, saddened and becoming lonelier. Aunty Peggy was active, not frail, but planning another trip to follow her three holidays last year, including a cruise with my cousin round Norway, getting trapped by the Icelandic volcanic eruption and choosing to trek for two days overland home. She had to get home; she had a wedding to go to.

She was inspiring! I hope when I'm ninety I can do as much.

Funeral

I went to Jack's funeral on Monday. The memorial service at the church was philosophical. When the priest first arrived at the parish, Jack greeted him by telling him that he had been at school with his son-in-law, and that's how the priest started his memories of Jack.

His middle daughter read Jack's favourite poem, High Flight, by John Gillespie Magee, and I've got a reasonable recording of it to put on the family site when I get the time.

Afterwards there was a meal at the Cottage.

Funeral

Yesterday I went to my cousin's funeral.

The burial service was before the memorial service, and only immediate family were at that. At the memorial however, there were more than 70 people. They included family: cousins (my brother, me & my son), his ex-brother-in-law who had worked in his business with him for years, his wife's family, school friends from the 60s, parents of children that their children had gone to school with, skiing friends, including the president or head or chief of the British skiing institution. I thought that showed how much they cared.

People talk about celebrating someone's life, but this service really did start as a celebration. It started with the hymn that they'd started their married life with in 1976, Praise my soul, the king of heaven. It makes me smile to think of it. Lucky them - they had thirty years together. His brother described him faffing about with his first car, then read a poem of Gerald Manley Hopkins, The Windhover. Hopkin's poetry is so difficult to read; He'd tried to learn it by heart.

There was a slide show of pictures of him from baby to child to man, husband and father and ended rather splendidly with films of him skiing, stopping to face the camera, then skiing down the hill away from us. His brother-in-law talked about him and a friend played a guitar piece - I recognised it from the sixties or seventies but would someone who was there please tell me what it is called.

The readings were two of my favourites: Ecclesiastes 3: 1-9 and the prayer of St Francis read by his elder daughter.

The sit-down meal was with a full menu including red or white wine. Someone must have been very busy and organised to have arranged all that. Thank you to them because it was good to see my relatives.

The grave is in the non-conformist, not the Catholic section, of the graveyard. This means that the magnificent view is out over the hill sides, towards the sea, which you can just see between the hills.

Later I'll put a couple of other photos in our family web site.